Data centers need power – lower income, rural residents pay the price

Re:Data centers need power – lower income, rural residents p... by nemomarx on Thursday November 12, 2026 @03:34PM (#50473835)

How many long term jobs for locals do they create after construction? My experience with similar booms in fracking is that you get a lot of out of town workers and some local jobs catering to them for 2-3 years and then it's pretty quiet and the money slows to a trickle once they've built up infrastructure.

DCs need some guards, some highly trained technicians, and that's mostly it, right? maybe 20-30 jobs per? That's not exactly opening up a new major employer like a factory or steel mill.

If you're facing local protests, my suggestion is offer to fund their schools for 5 years with a bond or something like that. Put the company name on a new power plant. It won't take up most of the cost of building and it'll probably get town hall to approve the zoning for you.

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Re:Data centers need power – lower income, rural residents p... by bluefirebrand on Thursday November 12, 2026 @03:45PM (#50474012)

> some highly trained technicians, and that's mostly it, right?

Do they even need the technicians on full time? I feel like those are flown out if something is wrong and otherwise can just monitor remotely?

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Re:Data centers need power – lower income, rural residents p... by limagnolia on Thursday November 12, 2026 @03:54PM (#50474134)

A large mega-datacenter, like the ones they appear to be talking about here, do generally have a significant onsite, full time staff.

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Re:Data centers need power – lower income, rural residents p... by toast0 on Thursday November 12, 2026 @04:09PM (#50474310)

All of the data centers I've worked with have had technicians onsite 24/7. There's just a lot of stuff that sometimes needs doing that's easier with someone there.

I'm sure they pull in from outside the area for large jobs like major equipment refreshes or major network changes. But for day to day stuff (and there's always day to day stuff), it's just a couple people. Some days, they're very busy and my lowpri tickets take a long time to get worked, other days my tickets get completed in minutes.

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Re:Data centers need power – lower income, rural residents p... by MaxHoppersGhost on Thursday November 12, 2026 @04:34PM (#50474630)

That many employees in a community of a few thousand or even 20 thousand is a massive boost to the local economy. Some places these things are being built have had declining populations for decades and haven't had new jobs in as many years as well.

They aren't building steel mills or factories in too many places these days - why do people keep comparing these to data centers as if it's even an option?

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